These are interesting times

SIR: We live in interesting times. The political class is having a hell of a jolly time. The judiciary is courting public scrutiny because judges are now living in interesting times. Public servants are also having a swell of a time. The senators are leading the dance in this interesting milieu. The representatives are not immune to the bug of interesting times. In a nation that brags about as the giant of mother Africa, it should be expected that Nigeria must be a land of interesting people.

Take our love for life and fun. We are loud. Our men are loud. Our women are loud. Our youths are loud. The rich are loud. The well connected are loud. Our politicians are loud in their habits. They are loud in their manner. They are loud in their tastes. They are loud in their sartorial elegance – whether in suit or agbada. President Jonathan controls 11 aeroplanes. They call it presidential fleet. He goes about with a fleet of darkened SUVs and battalion of minders. His public-funded kitchen budget still stands at N1billion. That kitchen must be loud with expensive utensils that befit the ruler of the giant of Africa.

Nigeria is now a country without Pentecostal modesty. Our pastors are modern day arrogant Pharaohs. In carriage, in cassock, in speech they all look like medieval emperors. Churches are no longer a place of celestial calm and repose but consulting malls for business deals. The glory of Christ has been replaced by the glory of materialism. They now indulge openly in the things that will make Satan proud.

The story of one big time crook called John Yakubu Yusufu and his other loud crooks did not surprise me at all. He is the feral meanness of the triumph of corruption in Nigeria. He is a true apostle of loud greed and a good discerner of our interesting times. History of big, loud stealing is not new. What we have are new actors from unlikely places. Abacha stole loudly. James Ibori stole loudly. Actors in the Halliburton scandal stole loudly. Worse, these looters are still living loud and large.

Why would anyone agonise over a man who defrauded pensioners of a mere N27billion? To be shocked or surprised is to diminish the stature of Nigeria as giant of corruption in Africa. Anyone who is angry over the maltreatment of police pensioners is yet to understand the depth of our soulless embrace of love of money. Look at the president. Despite his utopian pledges to transform Nigeria and exorcise the ghost of corruption, the guy is nothing but a latter day Nero who fiddles away while Nigeria burns.

John Yakubu Yusufu is hugely heartless. However, we have to thank Justice Mohamed Talba for bringing forward the inevitability of Nigeria’s Spring or grassroots revolution. His judgement on the N2732billion pension scam is nothing but a calamitous retreat from judicial fairness. His inaction to take proper action on the scam is affirming the accusation that in Nigeria justice is now privatised to the highest bidder.

Abroad, the actions of both John Yakubu Yusuf and Justice Talba will again begin to prompt the racist conviction that Africans are naturally prone to evil, lying, stealing, wickedness, corruption, venality and mismanagement. Revelation of scam like this is guaranteed to contribute to the centuries-old racist slur that Africans – blacks – are inherently amoral, lazy and corrupt.